Flower up your garden

About the map

Most countries have national flowers, which often reflect their natural landscapes and provide a sense of identity.

Many of these national flowers can grow in a variety of environmental conditions and are seen blooming across the world. Some countries even share the same national flowers despite being separated by huge oceans or landmasses!

This map showcases the national flowers of Europe and allows you to explore which environmental conditions are required for their growth - allowing you to see whether they could bloom in your garden.

Why it works

All flowers are unique, and often grow inconsistently across landscapes. To represent this variability, randomly placed multipoint features were generated for each country, and symbolised with custom images which represent the national flower. This custom symbology allows an effective visualisation of each flower in a single glance.

Using the interactivity provided with ArcGIS Experience Builder, users can explore each flower’s growing characteristics through filters and pop-ups. Dynamic Arcade expressions add further detail, showcasing the months during which each flower is in bloom.

Important Steps

1.

Prepare your data. The species data used in this map was added as a table and merged with a polygon layer of Europe using the Join Field tool in ArcGIS Pro.
2.

Design your symbols. Both ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online support custom symbols from images. The flowers used in this map were created using grouped shapes in Powerpoint!
3.

Customise your basemap. To allow the colourful flower symbology to stand out on the map, a simplified basemap with muted colours was created using the ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor.
4.

Enable interactivity. Allow users to filter multiple map layers at once using group filters in ArcGIS Experience Builder. Dynamic lists allow key information to be immediately displayed to your audience.

Data and software

The flower data used in this map was sourced from the Royal Horticultural Society. This was joined with multipoint country layers created using European Boundaries data from the ArcGIS Living Atlas. The map was made in ArcGIS Pro and used in an Experience Builder.
Analysis

As this map uses only data visualisation techniques, no analysis was required to create it.
Time

The custom symbology took a few hours to design, but configuring the web map was relatively quick once the narrative had been decided. Another hour or two was spent customising the theme and functionality of the Experience Builder application.

Get creative with symbology

Don’t be afraid to step outside of ArcGIS to create custom images for symbology. This can help you better communicate the narrative of your map.
Add some fun to your pop-ups with Arcade

Did you know you can put emojis into your pop-ups? By writing nested if statements that relate to different attributes in the data, your pop-ups can display related emojis to enhance your storytelling.
Show more detail with visibility ranges

Enabling visibility ranges within your map layers allows you to control what appears at different map scales. In this map, more flowers appear on the map as the scale increases.

Links & Resources

Map Author

Molly Brabham (she/her)

Molly is a Graduate GIS Consultant at Esri UK with a background in Physical Geography. She enjoys being outdoors and getting stuck into a good book.

Start making maps with a free trial of ArcGIS Online

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About the map

Why it works

Important Steps

1.

2.

3.

4.

Requirements

Data and software

Analysis

Time

Tips and tricks

Get creative with symbology

Add some fun to your pop-ups with Arcade

Show more detail with visibility ranges

Links & Resources

Customise basemaps using Vector Tile Style Editor

Enhance your map pop-ups with Arcade

Get started with ArcGIS Experience Builder

Create a cohesive design in your web apps

Molly Brabham (she/her)

Start making maps with a free trial of ArcGIS Online